The agony of Ken Bigley

By CAHAL MILMO

In chains, Kenneth Bigley stares in blank terror from a wire cage. His bound limbs force him into a half crouch while his voice falters and cracks.

First, he begs for negotiations to release Iraqi women prisoners. Then he begs for the well-being of his elderly mother. And then he begs for his life.

From his neck to his ankles he is shackled by steel. Above him, in a row of three cages fashioned from grids of thick wire, hangs the starburst banner of his captors.

This was the image that Tawhid and Jihad, and its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, presented to the world as they released a grainy video of the British hostage pleading for mercy while caged and clothed like the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. In a four-minute recording, broadcast on Al-Jazeera, and designed to maximise the pressure on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bigley, 62, is shown accusing the Prime Minister of lying - before imploring him to meet his captors' demands.

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit to mimic those worn by terror suspects held in the American prison camp, the civil engineer said: "Tony Blair is lying ... My life is cheap. He doesn't care about me."

Then he adds: "Tony Blair, I am begging you for my life, I am begging you for my life. Have some compassion please.

"My captors do not want to kill me. They could have killed [me] a week, two, three weeks ago, whatever. All they want is their sisters out of prison."

The video broke a week-long silence from Tawhid and Jihad, which seized Bigley and two American colleagues, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, a fortnight ago from their house in the Mansour district of western Baghdad. Armstrong and Hensley were beheaded within five days of their abduction.

The kidnappers have warned that the Briton will meet the same fate unless an unspecified number of Iraqi women prisoners are released from American captivity.

Bigley finds himself at the mercy of a group increasingly willing to use him as the focus of a grotesque media campaign. His appearance was carefully tailored to underline the cruel power of his captors. The message was perverse but clear: We do not listen to pleas. No release is imminent. If this man is to die, it is the fault of the British Prime Minister.

Appearing gaunt and breaking down into tears, Bigley is shown on the video at one point bowing his head into his right hand and pausing before he continues to deliver his plea.

The camera zooms in and out on the hostage's face. He had been due to retire today. Bigley said: "I want to go home. I want to go home. Please, Mr Blair, don't leave me here."

The Bigley family issued a direct response to the hostage-takers, thanking them for the "opportunity to see him alive again". Bigley's son, Craig, 33, said: "We, as a family, feel that the ultimate decision to release him rests with you, the people who are holding him. We once again ask you, please show mercy ... and release him."

The Foreign Office said the video appeared to confirm that the Briton was alive by referring to the hospitalisation of his mother, Lil, 86, and "negotiations" to secure the release of two French journalists.

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who spoke to the Bigley family after the release of the video, said the new footage was a mixed blessing.

Straw said: "The conditions in which Mr Bigley is being held are obviously of great concern but it will have come as great relief to the family, as it is to me, to know at least Mr Bigley is alive."

Britain is ready to listen to kidnappers holding a British hostage in Iraq but is not prepared to negotiate with them or pay them a ransom, Straw said.

"But we also want Mr Bigley released so, were the hostage takers to get in touch with us, we would obviously listen to what they have to say. That in no sense undermines our position."

Blair had earlier said that "everything possible" was being done to secure Bigley's release, short of negotiation, including trying to contact Tawhid and Jihad directly.

Yesterday's recording of the hostage, released almost exactly 24 hours after the Prime Minister made his keynote speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton, only deepened the pressure on Blair over his policy in Iraq.

It is unlikely Tawhid and Jihad is timing its videos to respond to events such as Blair's speech to the Labour Party conference.

But there seems little doubt that the group is seeking to make the Prime Minister pay a political price for the hostage crisis.

- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq